The present invention concerns a method and an equipment for cleaning internally of a centrifugal rotor, which has a central inlet chamber, a separation chamber connected via an inlet passage to the inlet chamber, and two central outlet chambers connected via an outlet passage each to the separation chamber at separate radial levels in it. While the rotor is rotating, cleaning liquid is supplied to the inlet chamber via an inlet channel in a stationary inlet device and is discharged from the two outlet chambers via outlet channels in a stationary outlet device.
A method for such an internal cleaning of a centrifugal rotor is described in JP U 60-104255. In this all cleaning liquid is supplied to the centrifugal rotor by means of a centrifugal pump arranged in an inlet conduit between a tank and the centrifugal rotor. Furthermore, all cleaning liquid, which is discharged via the outlet chambers of the centrifugal rotor is conducted back to the tank. However, it proves in practice difficult to obtain an acceptable cleaning result with the suggested method. Often one cannot get the radial innermost part of the centrifugal rotor clean enough. In many cases one therefore with equal time intervals has to disassemble the centrifugal rotor manually, clean it internally, including inserts present therein, and reassemble the same. This is a very time consuming operation. Especially this is the case in centrifugal rotors, in which a stack of conical discs is arranged in the separation chamber. If the separator is used for dewatering and cleaning of oils, this time consuming and also dirty operation often recurs. In some cases the cleaning has to take place every two hundred hours of operation.